Ghost in the machine
by cyanspark
Summary: What is the Winter Soldier? (Or, just another self-indulgent Winter Soldier drabble.) (Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier)


He is a weapon.

He was forged in violence, in blood and screams and death. Forged in sniper bullets blowing holes through skulls and hearts, in the metallic whisper of knife blades draining rivers of crimson, in the crack of broken cervical vertebrae, in the silencing of breaths with the crushing of fragile throats.

There is nothing beyond his mission. There is only the mission, and when that is done, there is nothing until the next mission.

He is a weapon codenamed Winter Soldier.

He is nothing else.

* * *

He is a weapon. He has been forged for his masters' wishes, and he is discarded at their whims.

He does not know how he knows this, but he has a vague impression that if he starts questioning their orders too much, if he starts to feel a prickle at the edge of his mind like a thaw, a little voice that tells him what he is doing is _wrong_, they will strap him into their machine and scrape his mind clean with blinding pain so he will no longer question.

He is a weapon. He does not have thoughts. But if someone were to ask him how he felt, and it has been a while since they scrubbed him, he would say that he does not like it. He does not like being used and discarded, wiped and frozen. He does not like the emptiness he sometimes feels in his chest, as though someone has cut out some vital organ and left a hollow cavity there, and he does not like the way that emptiness sometimes feels a lot like pain.

No one asks. He is not supposed to have thoughts. He is not supposed to feel.

* * *

He is a weapon, he is—

"Bucky?" the blond-haired man asks, with wide eyes.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" he responds, but something in the name, or in those blue eyes, breaks something loose inside him that starts to rattle around, painfully, banging with the screech of metal and the coppery stench of blood and a voice that sounds a lot like a human scream—

He is—

He is—

* * *

He was a ghost.

He was torn from a body falling, falling, as a train and an outstretched hand vanish into the white-blue frosted sky, falling, with the howl of the wind and his own scream of terror ringing in his ears, falling.

He was a ghost, floating in the numb embrace of dark nothingness.

He was a ghost, ripped from the merciful darkness and thrust back into a world of pain, born again in the icy burn of winter, the agony of a shattered body being dragged along the ground, his own blood staining the blindingly white snow a brilliant red.

He was born again, forged in violence, in the oblivion brought by electric shocks and human fists and numbing ice. He was forged with the taste of rubber in his mouth and ghostly nerves in a metal arm and nothing but a mission implanted in his mind.

He was a ghost who existed before the weapon codenamed Winter Soldier, who existed in the reflection of blue eyes filled with hope, and before that he was—he was—

* * *

He is—

He is not supposed to think, to _feel_, but he wants to remember the man on the bridge, and he is no longer a weapon, but a ghost, trying to remember something beyond blood and violence and the cold tang of steel, and he thinks, he thinks he doesn't want to be a weapon, he thinks—

They kill the ghost, and reforge the weapon with electricity and pain. There was no ghost, the electricity whispers to him with a burning tongue. There was never any ghost.

He is a weapon.

He is nothing else.

* * *

He is a weapon, forged in the clarity of his masters' orders and the drive to carry them out. He is a weapon codenamed Winter Soldier, he is nothing else, he is—

"You know me."

"Bucky. You've known me your whole life."

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."

"_Shut up!_" he yells back, because he is supposed to be a weapon, nothing more. He is not supposed to feel, but he feels _fear_ at Captain America's words—fear that he wasn't always HYDRA's weapon, that he once was something else.

He is not. He was never.

But the fear is a hot and cold thing scrabbling at the empty cavity in his chest as though trying to peel back a scab that doesn't exist, _couldn't_ exist.

He is a weapon. He is supposed to finish his mission as quickly and efficiently as possible. But control is slipping away from him as the thing in his chest blazes white-hot. He pounds his metal fist into Captain America's face because how dare he, how _dare_ he suggest that the Soldier was not always what HYDRA told him he was. How _dare_ he hold back his strength and lie there, defenseless. How _dare_ he look at the Soldier with tear-filled eyes, with compassion, with _weakness_.

"'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line."

Everything is upside-down. Everything is wrong. He is a weapon. He does not have a name. He is not supposed to receive kindness or sympathy. He is—

* * *

He is a defective weapon.

He has been broken by imploring words, eyes full of trust and sorrow, a bruised and bloody face that reaches inside him and tears something out that doesn't, shouldn't exist (_there was no ghost, the electricity screamed, there was never any ghost, you are the Winter Soldier and you are nothing else, you are nothing, you are nothing_)—

The floor shatters. The Captain falls. He falls after him into the cold water, drags him to shore. He watches the Captain exhale, and then he leaves.

He does not know why he did the things he did.

He is a defective weapon. He has failed his mission.

He does not know what he is anymore.

* * *

He is a weapon without a purpose, wandering aimlessly in a confused fog. He was broken by words and blue eyes and a body sinking in the water that he dragged to shore. He is defective. He does not know what he is.

He wears humanity like an ill-fitting disguise, hiding his metal arm with a tattered jacket, pulling a baseball cap low over his face, trying not to draw any attention. He has nothing to cling to, except the Captain (who is still his mission, but also the source of the fear in his chest and other things he doesn't have names for but that sometimes stir in the backs of his eyes). He remembers the Captain's last words to him.

Lies, he wants to think.

But he does not know what he is, and maybe, maybe he can find some answers.

* * *

Bucky Barnes was a weapon.

He was forged in the fires of war, the singing of gunfire, the screams of dying men. He was forged with the weight of a sniper rifle, in the blistering ashes of exploded HYDRA factories, in driving rain and squelching mud and freezing snow.

But Bucky Barnes was not a weapon. No weapon could laugh or smile as easily as he did. No weapon sprouted from Brooklyn roots like a weed, with a cocky grin and mischievous eyes and a dogged loyalty to his best friend.

Captain America—Steve Rogers—had called him Bucky.

He spends many long minutes standing there, studying this man, this ghost who wears his face.

He does not think he is Bucky Barnes.

* * *

He thinks maybe he is a ghost.

It has been the longest he's been out of cryofreeze, and things are starting to come back to him. Flashes. Memories, maybe. Things that quicken his pulse and scratch at the corners of his eyes. He thinks he used to have names for them, but he can't remember.

There is blood. A lot of blood. A lot of dead bodies.

There are faces he can't remember names for, but he does not like them. He wakes up from sleep with a clenched jaw and fingers clutching at his scalp, the words "_Put him on ice_" and "_Wipe him, and start over_" ringing in his ears.

There is ice. A train, winding through snowy mountains. Captain America, _Captain America_, holding a hand out to him, crying "_Bucky! No!_" as he falls…

He sucks in air as he opens his eyes to stare up at the darkened ceiling of his motel room. Everything is quiet and still, but he can still feel the icy wind chafing at his skin as he fell, can still see those blue eyes wide with panic and grief.

"I knew him," he says, to no one in particular.

No one answers him. He's not sure whether he feels disappointment or relief.

* * *

He is a ghost being dragged, unwillingly, back to life, in all its harsh glory.

He is born again in fragments of memories returning in haphazard pieces. In flashes of more blood, more dead bodies. But also in marches through the rain and mud, with a rifle slung over his back. He is born again in steamy July afternoons, lounging on the street with a soda and someone smaller sitting beside him as the sun baked the streets. And he is born again in freezing winter nights, curled up under a threadbare blanket with a frail, bony, shivering body in his arms.

These memories bring pain. Sharp remorse, lodging inside him like a burr. Sadness, throbbing in his veins as a dull ache. Nostalgia, thick and bittersweet on the back of his tongue.

He is the empty casing left behind by a bullet, the ghost of a man who had laughter in his eyes and died falling from a train in 1944.

He still does not know what he is.

* * *

He is somewhere between a ghost and a person, a human and a weapon, Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier, between life and existence.

He keeps his shoulders slouched as he moves through the crowds, trying to pretend he is human and not a ghost. But others can smell it on him, somehow, and they mostly give him curious stares but a wide berth. He wonders, idly, if they can sense the way humanity is still an ill-fitting disguise wrapped around him, like a cloth sheath hiding the blade of a weapon (defective, but still).

Sometimes, he thinks Steve Rogers is trying to follow him. He will be walking in the middle of the street when suddenly he will see a flash of blond hair, a blue jacket, and he would duck into a small alleyway, breathing hard. Or he will be sitting at one of those open-air cafés when he will feel a pair of eyes on him from behind, and his spine goes rigid, and he would throw some bills onto the table and quickly walk away.

He does not want Steve Rogers to call him by the name of a ghost, not when he doesn't know what he is.

* * *

He is—he is—

He was forged in violence, in—in—

—in the sticky heat of a Brooklyn summer, with the sun beating down on his skin and sweat drenching his shirt. In the solid smacks of his fists against flesh, in the grunts and howls that ring in his ears, in the taste of blood from his split lip.

Then the other boys are gone, and the wild, laughing anger is spent in his veins, and he's alone with the blond-haired kid who's staggering to his feet.

"You okay?" he asks, holding out a hand.

"Y-yeah. Thanks." The boy's got a bloody nose and the beginnings of a black eye, but that doesn't disguise the look of surprise, almost awe on his face as he takes his hand. "I'm Steve."

"James Barnes," he drawls, pulling Steve to his feet. "Call me Bucky."

* * *

He is a muffled scream in the night, an echo of Bucky Barnes's dying scream, of the Winter Soldier's screams as HYDRA ripped his soul away from him. He is Bucky Barnes's scream of horror at the Winter Soldier's blood on his hands, and the Winter Soldier's scream of terror at the realization that he was once Bucky Barnes.

He is Bucky Barnes's scream at the memory of having tried to kill Steve, of having punched him until his face was bruised and bloody and broken. He is the Winter Soldier's scream at the burning knowledge that Steve Rogers was once his friend, his best friend, the boy he'd protected from the world and the man he'd followed 'til the end of the line—

He is the scream of a ghost, of a broken weapon, until his voice gives out and he has nothing left except stifled sobs and ugly tears and bitter anguish.

* * *

He is a ghost.

He should have died in 1944, when he fell from that train.

He should have died again on the Helicarrier. Steve should've killed him, should've put him out of his misery before he had a chance to remember.

He is a ghost forced back to life and he is wandering, lost.

He thinks he wants to be found.

* * *

He lets himself be found.

"Bucky," Steve breathes.

He is a ghost, a shadow, an empty, broken silhouette, and it almost kills him to see Steve look at him as though he could be human again.

"You should've just...killed me," he croaks.

Steve looks down. "I couldn't," he confesses. "I couldn't lose you. Not again."

He twitches. "I'm not…" he starts, and stops. "I've done things. I can't…"

"Let me help you, Bucky," Steve says, softly. "Please."

He is a ghost, a broken weapon, a criminal, a remnant of a person, a killer, a sinner, a shattered soul.

But in those blue eyes lit with a flame of hope—he might be human again.

* * *

He is not a weapon.

He is not quite _not_ a weapon, either.

He is something else, something more.

Hopefully, he can be something better.


End file.
